


Garden of the Heart

by aj_linguistik



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki
Genre: 2k Words for 2k Kudos, Cute Date, Eugeo is a real person AU, Fanfic Request, Flowers, Fluff, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-10-01 00:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20455826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aj_linguistik/pseuds/aj_linguistik
Summary: A request for my 2k Words for 2k Kudos on tumblr.Kirito loves taking Eugeo on dates- to a very special and unique place: the park! It's a surprising side to Kirito that Eugeo thinks he'd never have seen if they weren't dating. Who knew he loved plants and flowers this much?





	Garden of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Max_Needs_Serious_Help](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Max_Needs_Serious_Help/gifts).

> A/N: This was super cute to write! A cute request! I didn't specify a park because...oh well. It's a park. Haha. I hope you enjoy!

Certain places are the kinds of locations you’d expect to go on dates at—like sit-down restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, or, for fancier folks, maybe a dine-in playhouse. In truth, a date could be just about anywhere. Kirito’s choice for a date location was neither a grand cliché nor somewhere totally unexpected for a romantic afternoon: a walk through the park.

It was a casual outing; I picked out an outfit that would be comfortable for outdoor strolls while simultaneously looking a little bit dressed up. I wanted to impress my date with my sense of style, after all. He’d probably compliment me wearing just about anything, but at least he’d appreciate some outfit effort. I hoped he was thinking the same.

I met him at the park just after lunch. He waited for me by the park gates. When I made it over to him, we shared a greeting kiss. Kirito smiled and complimented my outfit—in turn, I told him he looked very handsome today. He blushed a little, then started to rub the back of his neck. I reached over and grasped his hand.

“I’m only telling the truth,” I said.

His blush intensified.

“Shall we?” I asked, nodding towards the park.

Kirito perked back up. He suddenly tugged me along the path, clearly eager to show me something. I wondered what kind of thing might excite him in a public park. He always had his head stuck in some kind of computer or machine; a park might have seemed out of character for him to the average onlooker. But I knew him better than anyone else, being his boyfriend. There was one thing—one simple little precious thing—that Kirito might want right here in a lush, open-air park such as this one.

He dropped down onto a bench suddenly. I plopped down next to him, still holding his hand in mine as if he’d disappear if I let go. He pointed across the pathway to a tree, smiling at me with a curious sparkle in his eyes.

“Do you know the scientific name for the camphor tree?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Can’t say that I do,” I said.

Kirito shifted excitedly, clearly happy that I’d opened up the floor for him to talk about this tree. This was his surprising side to anyone who wasn’t close to him. He loves plants. I was certain that after he gave me his bit about this camphor tree, he’d drag me down towards the garden to talk about the flowers.

“It’s _Cinnamomum camphora_,” he said. “It’s mainly used for oils and timber.”  
I chuckled.

“I was going to guess it was related to cinnamon,” I said.

“You probably shouldn’t eat that,” he noted. “Unless you really want to see me try?”

I shook my head again. He grinned mischievously and pulled me up off of the bench to dash over to the tree. He made a show of mockingly going to bite it. I playfully whacked his arm, telling him not to get caught taking bites out of the trees. Kirito diverted his attention away from the tree for a moment to steal a kiss from me.

His kisses were always as sweet as the scent of the flowers he liked to share with me. As he pulled his lips away to give me one of the best of his smiles, I felt a tug in my chest. I wanted to kiss him again. But he was already dashing down the sidewalk like an excited child. I did my best to keep up with him, if only to ensure that our hands never separated. I ran after him, drinking up the fresh, spring air and his pleasant aura all at once.

He finally came to a stop at the edge of the garden. Spread out before us was a vast bed of flowers, arranged in such a way that they were a perfectly blended gradient of reds, oranges, yellows, and pinks. Their scents wafted over to us on the gentle breeze. A few people were milling about the garden, pointing into the sea of blossoms and speaking quietly to themselves.

“The gardeners really outdid themselves, didn’t they?” I said.

Kirito nodded.

“It’s breathtaking,” he said. “You think I could ever make a garden like that?”

Back at his place, he was trying to raise a plant for the first time. It was a pretty blue flower that was shaped like a star. He’d become quite attached to the gardening habit, even if it was just for the sake of his little blue friend. He seemed to be seriously contemplating having a much larger garden when he got a house. I pondered about that for a moment.

Kirito, with a cozy little house and a largish garden out front, would spend part of his day working on his mechatronics and the other part tending to his plant friends. I couldn’t help but insert myself into this little daydream about the future—we were side-by-side in the garden there just as much as we were now. Just thinking about it made my heart flutter. I squeezed his hand gently.

“What are you blushing about?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

He gave me a quick peck on the cheek and guided me over closer to the edge of the flower bed.

“You see these orange ones on the left?”

I nodded.

“Those are tiger lilies,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if the person who named them put a lot of thought into that or not. The brown speckles don’t make me think of tigers. I associate speckles more with leopards and cheetahs. But a cheetah lily might be silly, huh?”

His comment made me chuckle. I didn’t think of any animals when just staring down at a flower, but someone along the line must have gazed down at this blossom and been reminded of a tiger in some fashion.

“Well, if not a cheetah lily, what would you call it?” I asked him.

Frowning in thought, he grasped his chin with his hand and stared off at some point in the distance. His forehead creased just a bit when he was in thought. The progression of him thinking to him stumbling across an answer was evident on his face in an almost cartoonish way. His eyes widened and his face lit up with a huge grin.

“I’d call them fox lilies!” he said.

I lifted an eyebrow at him and smiled.

“Any particular reason why?”

“Foxes are orange,” he said, “and keeping with the theme, they’re an animal.”

When I started to giggle at his answer, he gave me a funny look.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t think you _had_ to keep with the animal theme,” I said, leaning over to press my shoulder against his.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Fair point.”

I wrapped my arm around his so that our bodies were pressed up against each other. I skimmed over the flower bed, looking at all of the different shapes and colors. Kirito started to babble mindlessly about each and every one he could identify. I watched him with a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest.

This. This pure moment of Kirito enjoying something without a care in the world was what made me fall for him over and over again. He didn’t seem to know when his flip switched and he went from a cautious, on-guard person just trying to fit into the social setting to a carefree individual just excited to exist and share his love for something. Watching him pull down all of his walls and be himself without chains brought joy to my heart.

Facts about flowers from seemingly out of nowhere spilled from his mouth. Some were about how they grew or where they preferred to be planted. He knew the histories behind some of their names, and wondered aloud to me about others much in the same way he had about the tiger lilies. He simple biology facts, flower meanings, and whether or not they were edible.

He even tried to prove one’s edibility to me. I had to stop him. I couldn’t keep myself from laughing as he plucked one flower and stuffed it in his mouth to prove his point. Knowing I was already too late, I reached over and grabbed the stem that was sticking out of his mouth to remove the flower. He let me take it and toss it in a nearby garbage bin. When I turned back to him, he reached over and cupped my face in one hand.

“Hey. Hold still a moment,” he said.

I stood as still as I could manage.

“What for?” I asked.

“For this,” he said.

He slipped a blue flower’s stem into my hair in such a way that it tucked behind my ear. I felt the weight of the flower in my hair and locked eyes with him. His smile was so soft. I wanted to lean forward and kiss him again. I didn’t have to ask, though. He took the liberty of touching his lips to mine without needing to be told. When he pulled back and gazed at me again, he brushed the hair on the other side of my head behind my ear and sighed.

“That flower is a forget-me-not,” he said, in a voice like a whisper.

His eyes looked slightly misty.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I’m just thinking about how well that flower suits you, both in color and in name.”

I lifted my hand to the side of my head and contemplated touching the area where the flower was.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He smiled, but it seemed different than before. This smile exuded a feeling that couldn’t quite be put into words. His fingers brushed along my bare cheek.

“Undying love,” he said.

He pulled me in to yet another kiss. When we parted, he started to talk more about the symbolism behind the flower. It was associated with lovers not just in the sense of undying love, but of growing affection, loyalty to one another even apart, reminders of one another, and a connection between two people that would last a very long time. His explanation made him sound like such a sappy romantic.

“What kind of flower would you pick for me?” he asked.

I thought about that. I wasn’t as familiar with flower facts as he was. There was one flower, however, that I did know the meaning of. While it wasn’t as deeply thought out as his example was, I knew it could still come across as meaningful.

“I’d pick you a bouquet of salvia,” I said.

He chuckled a little at the thought.

“Is that because of the story of me and Suguha eating it?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Salvia means healing,” I said.

A curious expression replaced his laughter.

“I’m pleasantly surprised you know that,” he said. “But now I’m even more curious as to why you picked it.”

It suddenly seemed embarrassing to spout off what I’d been thinking of. His example had been romantic, for sure, but it was the kind of fluffy thing that one expected out of a casual romantic comment. My answer was much deeper than just flirting in the part. I felt my cheeks flush with heat just thinking about it.

“Is it that embarrassing?” he asked. “I promise I won’t laugh.”

I shook my head. He was right.

“I…I just associate you with my own personal healing,” I said, staring down at the ground. “Before we met…before we were together…things were really hard. But then you came into my life and you take me out here, where it’s peaceful and beautiful…and I feel like the hurt and pain I was feeling have been healed just by you coming into my life and helping me to…”

I paused and glanced over the flower bed. I took his hand and squeezed it tightly.

“…to stop and enjoy the flowers.”

He let out a small laugh and pulled me into his arms.

“I’m glad I can share them with you,” he said. “You’re more precious to me than any of these flowers, and they’re even more special now that I can share them with you, Eugeo.” 

I slipped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his shoulder. I don’t feel like I deserve Kirito. This boy who stepped into my somber, dull life just whisked me away to a garden every so often and opened my eyes to a world of color. I might never understand why he cared this much for me, but I am grateful. Because the colors didn’t just come from the flowers right here in front of us.

They came from the garden in Kirito’s heart.


End file.
